


Loyalty

by INMH



Series: The Fruits of Mercy [10]
Category: The Order: 1886
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-21 15:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13743969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Fruits of Mercy Series. Hastings is back, and he wants something from Alastair.





	Loyalty

**[-The Twenty-Ninth of September, 1887-]**  
  
“Lord Hastings is coming.”  
  
Every hair on Alastair’s body stood on end.  
  
_Shit. Shit, shit, shit._  
  
“Shit,” Argus grunted, downing the remaining half of his whiskey and tossing the empty bottle across the room, where Alastair heard it crack. “I thought we were shot of that ponce.” Alastair snorted. He’d never had the balls to insult Hastings to his face, too nervous about the man’s ability to expose him to the Order, and it was refreshing to hear someone throw a barb or two at the blood-thirsty bastard. “Madeleine, warn everyone that the _grand Lord Hastings_ is gracing us with his presence- and find Rooker, aye? Tell him to haul ass here as quick as he can.”  
  
“Yes, sir.” Madeleine turned and left without another word. That, if nothing else, was enough to make Alastair uneasy; Madeleine was a slimy little thing, eager for blood and violence, and was usually not easily cowed. But apparently Hastings had shown his worst side to her at some point, because she was pale and hadn’t so much as giggled at Argus’s snide remarks.  
  
“Remind me, Alastair, have you had any contact with this human-shaped _cock_ since you came to be with us permanently?”  
  
“No, Argus. I haven’t seen him since right before I left the Order.” Hastings had never sought him out, and Alastair had been intimidated by the prospect of approaching him after so many months of silence. He had been recovering from his injuries, trapped in the countryside by the snow following his and Grayson’s escape from London and the Order’s crackdown on the city, but he’d still been concerned that Hastings might not take that as an acceptable excuse.  
  
Argus rubbed his temples and looked to Adrienne. “What do you suppose he wants?”  
  
Adrienne looked less nervous than darkly wary. “Nothing good, I expect. We haven’t heard from him since- well, since Alastair last did, I think. He’ll probably want something from us.”  
  
“Doesn’t he always?” Alastair muttered.  
  
“Aye, that’s usually how it goes.” Argus shook his head and got to his feet. “Well, we’re going to have to hear him out, at any rate; the last time we tried to tangle with a Vampire two of us ended up dead and the rest ended up clawed to pieces, and the bastard still got away.” He moved to the door, and Adrienne and Alastair followed him without a word; Adrienne, Argus, Madeleine and Rooker were the current leaders of the Lycans hiding out in London, and Alastair had worked directly with Hastings, so he would be needed at this meeting as well.  
  
The largest concentration of Lycans still in the city inhabited a small section of Whitechapel, on the edge of the district and away from any areas known to be inhabited by Rebels. Walking down the streets during the day, one might not realize that they were surrounded by Lycans, who largely went about their usual business without causing a stir; the only thing one might notice was the nervous or hostile looks being directed at them, but then, that wasn’t uncommon for a district as steeped in crime as theirs.  
  
A pained shout, bordering on a scream, came from a window above their heads, and all three of them looked up. “The hell was that?” Adrienne snapped. Any sort of loud commotions were frowned upon, if only because they were the sort of things that brought the authorities creeping around.  
  
Holly, one of the few Lycans who operated as a doctor, appeared in the window, slamming it shut without so much as a word or a glance at the street below. Alastair’s sharp hearing detected a few more pained moans from the room above, but nothing else. “Isn’t that Thomas’s house?”  
  
Argus hesitated, but then looked back down and kept walking. “’Tis.” Adrienne followed quickly, and Alastair did so as well after a moment of hesitation.  
  
“Is he hurt?”  
  
Argus stopped abruptly and cast a confused look at Alastair. “Have you seen him lately? It’s-” He clamped his mouth shut, stared at Alastair for a moment, and then sniffed. “It’s about time for him to be making those sorts of noises, boy. Ignore it. It’s not our business what he’s doing.” He turned around and kept walking.  
  
It took Alastair a moment to realize what Argus was referring to, drawing up memories of the last time he’d seen Thomas a week or two ago- and then he furiously pushed the image from his mind with a pulse of nauseous anxiety. What was going on in that room was not something discussed, even in whispers, amongst Lycans, and even if it were, he _never_ wanted to think of it again.  
  
It wasn’t until they were approaching the ramshackle building that served for their official business and Alastair caught a whiff of Lord Hastings (he smelled like blood, common to Vampires, and a cologne he must have been accustomed to using) that he was able to really force the subject away.  
  
Argus pulled open the door. “Hastings,” Alastair heard him say as he waltzed inside, the picture of confidence. “It’s been a while.”  
  
“Indeed it has.”  
  
Alastair stepped in behind Adrienne, and saw Madeleine and Rooker were already in the room. Hastings stood along the far wall, heavily cloaked to conceal his identity. Alastair realized with disgust that this was likely the outfit he donned whenever he was out hunting for victims.  
  
Hastings locked eyes with him, and a small, leering smile appeared on his face. “Sir _Lucan_ , such a long time since-” He feigned surprise. “Oh, goodness, but you’re not Sir Lucan anymore, are you, Alastair?”  
  
“No, Lord Hastings, I am not,” Alastair assured him, barely avoiding spitting it through his teeth.  
  
“Oh, I meant no offense, Alastair,” Hastings said, tone implying that that was precisely what he’d meant. “I simply felt it pertinent to reestablish that you’re no longer a member of Her Majesty’s Knights.”  
  
Alastair’s hair stood on end again, skin prickling with anxiety. Hastings was not a man, not a _Vampire_ who wasted his breath on meaningless words (at least, meaningless words that didn’t serve some sort of purpose to him). “Do you mean something by that, Lord Hastings?” He asked coolly, clenching and unclenching his fists as discreetly as he could manage.  
  
“Nothing at all.”  
  
“I think you did,” Argus grunted, having settled into a seat; he patted the one beside him, the one closest to the door, and Alastair felt vaguely assured by that. “Sit, Alastair, please.” He did not offer a seat to Hastings.  
  
“Oh Argus, you can’t help but feel a _little_ curious, can you? Alastair spent hundreds of years in the same organization, with his father and sister, and loyally serving the cause of the Order. You can’t tell me you don’t feel at least a _bit_ curious as to whether or not Alastair here harbors any lingering loyalties to the Order- or the people in it.”  
  
Alastair didn’t like the look on Hastings’s face. It promised mischief, and he wasn’t ignorant to the odds of the situation: Madeleine actively hated him, Rooker was ambivalent towards him, Adrienne liked him well enough, and Argus trusted him. All it would take would be one solid blow for Hastings to cripple Alastair’s place among them, among the Lycans.  
  
“I assure you, Lord Hastings, that I harbor no such loyalty to the Order,” Alastair assured him coldly. “I would think that would be obvious by now by my actions.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Hastings nodded, with a soft, elegant shrug. “Or perhaps not.”  
  
“I have severed ties with the Order. I’ve had no dealings with them since last year.”  
  
“Then prove it.”  
  
Alastair fought to keep his breathing steady. “And how would you like me to do that, Lord Hastings?”  
  
“By telling us the secret of the Blackwater.”  
  
Alastair’s breath caught. “What?”  
  
“The secret of the Blackwater,” Hastings repeated easily. “Tell us what it is, how it works- and how to procure some. And then I’ll be happy to resume my previous support for the Lycans.”  
  
Alastair let out a slow, quiet breath, appreciating the weight of the proposal that had just been placed fully onto his shoulders.  
  
The truth of it was that outside of the Order, knowledge of the Blackwater was scarce. Those who even knew of its existence only knew that it was what gave the Knights of the Order their long lives; and even then, they didn’t know the details, didn’t know that Blackwater had to be continuously consumed to keep them alive, didn’t know that withdrawing from it would cause time to catch up with them, didn’t know that it could heal even fatal injuries, and didn’t know that a small amount of Blackwater could be replenished by the holder’s blood.  
  
Those secrets were jealously guarded for a _reason._ One could venture into whatever ethical debates they liked about the fairness of a small group of people being granted immortality, could debate whether or not the Order was qualified to have long life or decide who else was able to partake in it. But the general consensus, especially amongst those who’d had long life for a very _long_ time, was that the general populous did not understand the drawbacks of immortality. Oh, it was all roses and rainbows until the overpopulation started, or their loved ones started dying around them, and they wouldn’t realize it until it was happening. The folly of human nature was that they were often terrible at realizing they were making a mistake until they were neck-deep in the consequences.  
  
And more to the point, the secrecy was not simply to prevent the average man on the street from a potentially dangerous thing; it was to protect the Order from its enemies, who might gladly raid Westminster for the chance at immortality, or at least the ability to find equal footing with the Order and its Knights. The Half-breeds, they’d decided, were powerful enough without the aid of the Blackwater.  
  
Alastair had kept the vial he’d gotten from Grayson carefully tucked away. He kept it on his person more often than not, for fear of someone stealing it or otherwise becoming separated from it, but always out of sight so as to prevent questions. Nobody amongst the Lycans knew that he was still consuming Blackwater, and even when he was injured enough to require drinking some, its effects were slow enough that no one questioned its healing properties.  
  
He had told no one of the Blackwater, and he had no intention of doing so. It had nothing to do with any residual loyalty to the Order (he had little to none, if there was any left at all) and everything to do with the fact that he had been alive long enough to know that power corrupted- the Order, and his father, were a prime example of that. And for all the things the Chancellor had done wrong, he had not been wrong in suggesting that the Half-breeds were powerful enough without the Blackwater behind them. Alastair could see a thousand ways the Lycans getting a hold of the Blackwater could end horribly.  
  
And that didn’t even take Hastings into the equation.  
  
Alastair would rather slit his own throat than let the man have so much as a drop of Blackwater.  
  
But now, sitting amongst the leaders of the London Lycans and Hastings, a Lord and leader of the Vampires, Alastair realized that he had a very serious problem on his hands.  Hastings had- probably deliberately, knowing him- done something very, very clever: He had questioned Alastair’s loyalty, and then demanded to know about the Blackwater, and he’d done it in front of the Lycan leaders so that even if Alastair refused for lack of trust in _Hastings,_ it would appear that he would be displaying lack of trust in the Lycans as well.  
  
I can’t allow him to know about the Blackwater. Alastair didn’t know for the life of him how the Blackwater would affect a Vampire, but he had to assume for the sake of safety that it would affect them the way it affected him: Slowly, but effectively. And they lived long enough without help, even if they weren’t immortal. And the simple fact of it was that there was something incredibly suspicious about this situation: Of _all_ the things that Hastings could have asked for, he was asking for the Blackwater? Asking for its secrets, how to use it?  
  
He was scheming something. And even when they’d been allied and Alastair had still been a member of the Order, he had kept a careful, _careful_ eye on the Vampire the whole while. He was a wily, sneaky thing, and Alastair had never once turned his back on the man when there were no witnesses there to maintain some safety.  
  
He tried to find a way around it. Could he lie? Could he misdirect?  
  
_No._  
  
_No, I can’t._  
  
And that meant only one answer was available to him:  
  
“No.”  
  
Alastair heard the other Lycans moving restlessly, though they didn’t speak. Hastings, for his part, raised his eyebrows high on his head, and folded his arms behind his back. “ _No,_ Alastair? No?”  
  
“No. I’m not telling you how they do it.”  
  
Four heads whipped towards Alastair, and they missed, they _missed_ the triumphant little smirk that flit across Hastings’s face. “ _No_ , Alastair? Now, why is it that you won’t give this information to us?”  
  
“I have my reasons.” _First and foremost being that I don’t bloody trust you._  
  
Hastings was the picture of innocence, the picture of entirely un-personal simplicity. “Well, then Argus, you’ll have to understand that I can’t support you and your Lycans for the time being. I simply _can’t_ , given the _question_ surrounding one of your member’s loyalties.”  
  
Alastair locked eyes with Hastings instead of looking at his fellow Lycans. Hastings was in a _far_ better position, still being in good graces with the Order, to find out the exact nature of the Blackwater on his own; this was nothing but torture, or perhaps revenge for Alastair’s failure to kill Grayson, who- as far as he knew- was still their mutual enemy, and was still alive to expose them both. Did he wonder why they hadn’t? Did he wonder why Alastair had not tracked him down and killed him since? Worst of all, did he somehow know about the nature of the relationship that had formed between Alastair and Grayson in the last year?  
  
“Have a good day, ladies and gentlemen,” Hastings remarked smoothly, “Do let me know if you change your mind, Alastair.” He stepped out the door, shutting it behind him.  
  
Almost immediately, Madeleine sprung up from her seat. “What the _fuck-!_ ”  
  
“ _Hush!_ ” Argus snapped, holding up a hand. They remained silent- he was waiting for Hastings to leave, didn’t want to air their business whilst the Vampire-lord was still close enough to enjoy their strife. When the smell of Hastings had faded a few minutes later, when the sound of his footsteps on the street outside had disappeared, Argus lowered his hand and nodded.  
  
“The _fuck_ were you thinking!?” Madeleine shrieked.  
  
“How could you not tell us?” Rooker hissed.  
  
“Was it Hastings?” Adrienne’s tone was neutral, but he could hear the warning in it- she was giving him a way out, trying to throw him a lifeline, and Alastair couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. “Will you tell us now that he’s gone?”  
  
Argus said nothing; it seemed he had anticipated Alastair’s answer and that hurt the most.  
  
“No. I can’t tell you.”  
  
“Why the _fuck_ not!?” Madeleine kicked her chair with such force that it smashed against the wall, and Argus didn’t even have it in him to chastise her for breaking what little furniture they had. “You’re still loyal to those fucking Knights, aren’t you? You’re a bloody turncoat, probably telling them about every word we say, everything we do! I ought to-!”  
  
“If Alastair was telling the Order anything, we’d all be dead,” Adrienne moving quickly from her seat to intercept Madeleine before she could launch herself at Alastair. “They’d have moved in on us months ago. Hastings is playing at something.” But the look she shot Alastair was unmistakably suspicious, and it stung, even if he couldn’t quite blame her for it.  
  
You can’t tell them, he told himself. _You **can’t.**_  
  
Alastair finally turned to look at Argus, heart pounding for fear he’d see the same suspicion in his eyes. But Argus’s eyes were blank, his expression empty; if he was upset, it didn’t show. If he was suspicious of Alastair, it wasn’t obvious.  
  
“Alastair,” He said, quietly, “If you would step out for a time, please. We need to speak on this.”  
  
“Of course.” Alastair wasn’t proud of how quickly he got out of his seat and got to the door- something clattered against the wall near his head, and he heard Adrienne snap at Madeleine before he was outside with the door shut, a thin barrier blocking him from what was going on inside. He was no more eager to hear this conversation than Argus was, and so he set off down the street back from where they’d come earlier.  
  
So rattled was Alastair from the meeting with Hastings that it took him a moment to realize where the screams were coming from; Thomas was evidently in far more pain than he’d been earlier, and was all but howling in the bedroom above, though the window was closed. Alastair could vaguely hear Holly speaking, but for the most part, all that was obvious was the _pain_ that Thomas was in, and he clapped his hands over his ears and strode away as quickly as he could down the narrow street.  
  
The reality of everything that had just happened seeped in despite his best attempts to keep it away. Alastair had just alienated the leaders of the Lycans, the people responsible for deciding who walked amongst them and who didn’t. It had taken him forever to earn their trust when he’d been a member of the Order, and even then he’d never won over Madeleine or Lawrence, the latter of whom he’d killed in a fight some months ago. These men and women were a tough breed, and it didn’t take much to arose their suspicion; they would  have no mercy on him if they thought him a traitor.  
  
Where would he go if they turned on him? He couldn’t- more like _wouldn’t_ \- go back to the Order, not when it would mean execution at the hands of his own father. He wouldn’t be welcome amongst the Half-breeds, and Grayson aside, Lakshmi didn’t trust him worth a damn so he wouldn’t exactly be welcome amongst the anti-Half-breed Rebels either. If the Lycans turned on him, stopped trusting him and tried to cast him out, he would have nowhere to go.  
  
Alastair’s fingers dug into his palms.  
  
Hastings’s leering.  
  
Madeleine’s anger.  
  
Rooker and Adrienne’s suspicious stares.  
  
Argus’s silence.  
  
Thomas’s agonized screaming.

Alastair suddenly felt as though he couldn’t take in enough air- not that he was suffocating, per se, but almost as though there was a boulder resting on his chest, restricting him enough to be uncomfortable but not so much that he might just pass out and be relieved of the struggle.  
  
He needed to get away from Whitechapel, away from the other Lycans.  
  
And there was only one other person he could go to in London that wouldn’t worsen these feelings threatening to boil over inside him.  
   
[---]  
   
Admittedly, it was easy to sneak into the brothel.  
  
Easier than perhaps it ought to have been, given that it was the secret headquarters for the Rebels.  
  
It wasn’t difficult to find Grayson’s bedroom, either; the weather lately had been warm enough that the windows of the building had been left at least cracked open, and Alastair’s sense of smell was strong enough that he could tell which room smelled strongest of the scents he had come to associate with Grayson: It was a mixture of smells too subtle to name, a bit of gunpowder here, a bit of soap there, and it came together with a dozen other little things that could only be defined as _Grayson_. No person ever smelled of just _one_ thing to a Lycan- they smelled of several things that made up _their_ unique scent.  
  
It went at least a little ways to calming Alastair. The twenty-minute brisk walk across the district had done little to reduce the panic building in him.  
  
_He’s in the same room as last time,_ Alastair thought as he scaled the side of the building and reached the window. When he’d visited Grayson after the Thermite incident he’d assumed Grayson had been put into a room where he’d be most accessible, given how severely he’d been injured and would have needed to be checked on. He carefully worked the window open- he didn’t need to look, there was only one person in the room and he was certain it was Grayson- and then climbed in.  
  
By the time his eyes adjusted to the light of the room, Grayson had seen him. “What on earth are you doing here?” He was lying in bed, bleary-eyed, his undershirt wrinkled worse than it had ever been when he’d been part of the Order.  
  
“Why are you sleeping in the middle of the day?”  
  
“Why are _you_ in my room in the middle of the day?” Grayson grunted in response, rubbing his eyes. His shirt drooped off his shoulder, revealing the barest trace of the scars he’d received from Isabeau’s thermite back in July.  
  
Alastair’s heart was thudding, and he still felt pretty sick. “No reason,” He said, trying to keep his voice light, “I thought I’d come see you. Didn’t realize you’d be sleeping. My apologies.”  
  
Grayson squinted at him, looking him up and down. “Did you run here?”  
  
“What? No.”  
  
“You’re breathing heavily. And you’re pale.” He paused. “Let me lock the door.” Grayson stood up and went to the door, and Alastair noticed that there was a second lock on it now- and it looked new. Had Grayson been having privacy problems in the Rebel’s headquarters, or had he anticipated that Alastair would be coming back for visits like this one and taken the initiative to reduce their chances of being discovered together?  
  
Alastair shrugged off a few items of clothing. He waited until Grayson was in bed again before he slid in beside him, ensuring he’d have the edge of the bed; positioning was key if he needed to make a quick getaway. Grayson pulled up the sheets and looked at Alastair with tired eyes. “So, what’s happened? You’re off.”  
  
He thought about denying it, but there was no point. “I’d rather not talk about it.”  
  
“Lycan business?”  
  
“Of a sort.” What he wouldn’t give for them to be unquestionably comrades again, to be without boundaries, to be able to explain what had happened with Hastings and ask for Grayson’s counsel on how to best handle it.  
  
“Fine then, keep your secrets. I’m going to sleep.” Grayson dropped his head onto the pillow, eyes falling shut.  
  
Alastair sat beside him for a long moment, watching him, and then slowly lowered himself down to lie next to him. Grayson didn’t stir; it didn’t bother him that Alastair was beside him, didn’t second-guess the fact that there was someone else in his personal space. Didn’t second-guess the fact that it was _Alastair_ in his personal space, and given that there was no alcohol, sex, or serious injury recovery involved in this encounter, that was progress indeed.  
  
Grayson was one of the few- and really, now that he thought of it, probably the _only_ \- people in the world that Alastair could reasonably trust. They were on equal-footing with one another, for both knew the sins of the other and there were no real secrets between them, nothing that would cause strife, at least. Alastair could sleep beside Grayson knowing that he wouldn’t awake with a knife in his chest, and Grayson could sleep beside him knowing he wouldn’t be mauled to death in his sleep.  
  
Alastair thought about putting an arm around him, but decided against it. They had slept in the same house, but apart, for three months at the beginning of the year; they had had sex in July; and Alastair had lingered next to the bed after Grayson had been recovering from his Thermite injuries a few weeks afterwards. Sharing a bed, it seemed, was fine; but in Alastair’s mind they had not yet reached the sort of intimacy that allowed touching outside of sex.  
  
_What in the fuck has my life become?_  
  
The answer was something truly unmanageable and terrifying and unpredictable and stressful, far more so than the Order or the role of Knight Commander had ever been for him. And at the moment the one person who _wasn’t_ making it worse was lying next to him, breath steadying as he fell asleep. He would have to deal with the fallout of Hastings’s little game, sooner than later, but for now he could pretend that his greatest concern was making sure no Rebels saw him in bed with one of their members.  
  
Alastair curled in on himself, nudged a little closer to Grayson- close as he dared- and shut his eyes.  
  
It would just be for a little while. Just a little while, and then back to the Lycans _._  
  
_I don’t want to go back._  
  
But the voice of reason crushed the voice of want as it did almost every time. He had made that choice a long time ago; there was no going back to the Order, and Rebels wouldn’t have him even he if wanted to be part of them. It was the Lycans, or nothing, and Alastair would not survive long with nothing.  
  
But for now, he had Grayson, who was trustworthy and would not ask too many questions, and for that he was grateful.  
  
  
-End


End file.
